


stars, hide your fires

by gracianasi



Series: waiting til the beat comes out [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 13:25:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6612316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracianasi/pseuds/gracianasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Monty Green meets Nathan Miller and knows immediately that he's going to fall in love with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stars, hide your fires

**Author's Note:**

> This one follows the timeline of "neither lost nor found."

Monty meets Nathan Miller on a Tuesday.

(It takes him another two weeks to learn that Miller is actually his last name, but he's getting ahead of himself.)

Monty meets Nathan Miller on a Tuesday, when Miller's the only barista working behind the counter of Grounders, and it's so late at night that they're the only two in the cafe. Monty approaches the bar, rubbing the pads of his fingers together absently. His eyes trip over the barista's wool beanie, his solemn face, his thick arms. 

"Hi," Monty says, and forgets to keep talking because the barista's eyes are really pretty, okay? And anyway, he can't be held accountable for anything that comes (or doesn't come) out of his mouth, not after the studying marathon he pulled today.

"Hi," says the barista, who raises his eyebrows. "Do you... want to order something?"

Monty's cheeks flush. "Uh, just a small green tea. Please." The barista nods and moves around behind the bar, getting Monty's tea ready. Monty does his best to not check out the barista's (really nice) ass, but see previous about his brain being fried from studying. "I haven't seen you working here before, are you new?"

The barista glances over his shoulder while he's pouring hot water into a coffee cup. "Nah, I just mostly work night shifts. I'm Miller."

"Monty," Monty supplies, and he's rewarded with what might pass as a grin from Miller. 

Monty pays and leaves, wants to get home sooner rather than later, doesn't really want to be that one lagging customer at the cafe, and as the door closes behind him he breathes out harshly. His magic, usually calm and serene, is lapping at his fingertips and he feels agitated. He knows that Miller doesn't have magic--would have felt it if he did--but there's something about him that makes Monty want to--to--he doesn't know what he wants to do, but. He wants something.

When he gets back home, he hears music softly playing from Jasper's room and knows that Maya's over, and it makes him feel a little lonely. Which, to be fair, he's felt lonely before, from all the time Jasper spends alone with Maya, but now (and he knows this is dumb, he's literally  _just_ met this guy) he feels even lonelier. His plants must empathize because some of their leaves are browning and their soil is dry. Murmuring to them, Monty cups his hands around each of the planters, one by one, lets water rise and soak, coaxes the plants to stand up taller. This kind of magic doesn't tire him out anymore; he barely even notices the pull. When he'd left home, he'd left behind his parents' greenhouse, and he'd felt in his bones the miles separating him from that land. The plants didn't speak to him, at least, not with actual voices, but they each had individual presences, and it had taken months for him to acclimate to the silence in his new dorm room. 

When he'd moved in with Jasper, and he was finally allowed to bring in plants--prohibited in his dorm room--Jasper had put his foot down about the amount of flora Monty could smuggle in. To be fair, their apartment wasn't spacious, and Monty might have gone a little overboard trying to squeeze as many plants in as he could. They'd found a compromise. Monty never feels alone now, not really, and while it takes a fair amount of work to keep some of his plants thriving--he has to artificially simulate bright or indirect light, tropical or winter temperatures, at random around the apartment at all times for some of his fussier plants--he knows he wouldn't be anything without this use for his magic.

* * *

 

Monty manages to avoid Grounders for four days and then he breaks. Already feeling enough like a loser, he hunkers down in the library to study and periodically checks his watch, waiting for it to get late enough that Miller might be working. At quarter to ten, he gives up trying to get past a sentence in his bio textbook he's been stuck on for the last half hour and packs up his stuff to go. Pushing open the cafe door, fully intending to commit to ordering something even if Miller isn't behind the bar, Monty notices a girl--he recognizes her from a class. Harper?--behind the bar, clearly wrapping up her shift. He doesn't see Miller for a second, but he must have been bending down to get something below the counter because he's straightening up suddenly, fingers scratching the back of his head under the beanie. 

Monty feels like he's been punched. It takes everything he has to force his feet to carry him to the counter. Apparently he'd forgotten how hot Miller was in the last few days. When Miller sees him waiting at the counter, he blinks slowly, and he flashes his teeth in a quick smile. Monty's short of breath and he's furiously yelling at his lungs to get their act together and fucking  _do their job_ \--

"Monty," says Miller, making Monty's heart somersault, because his name on Miller's lips, in Miller's voice, is. It's just. It sounds really good. "Green tea again?"

"I'll get a scone too," Monty says, ridiculously proud of himself when his voice comes out strong. 

Miller nods, presses his lips together. "Good choice. Harper baked them. I burned the first thing I ever tried baking here, so they won't let me make any of the food anymore." Monty, startled at Miller's sudden verbosity, laughs and reaches up to mess with his hair.

"Seems like a rational decision," he replies, nodding, and Miller's grin widens. His eyes crinkle at the corners as he rings Monty's purchases through. 

Before Monty can run away and dissect every moment of the exchange, Miller catches his eye and says,  _carefully_ (Monty swears this), like he wants him to get every word stuck in his head, "I'll see you around, Monty."

"Yeah," Monty breathes, feeling like maybe he's not the only one here that's dumbstruck, "yeah. See you, Miller." __

* * *

 

So of course it becomes a thing: Monty heading to Grounders after a late night in the library, once or twice a week when he's sure Miller will be there. He keeps buying scones, because they're amazing, and he learns things about Miller, like how he's an only child, he's in the graduate program for criminology and sociolegal studies, and how he has short, cropped hair underneath the omnipresent beanie (he's only seen Miller's bare head once, but he wishes he could see it more often). He observes that Miller is a man of few words, but sometimes he strings together more than a few short sentences at a time, looking slightly winded and surprised at himself. Monty categorically denies to himself that he finds it endearing.

He stops running off immediately after ordering, getting used to leaning against the counter and watching as Miller cleans the coffee machines and rearranges pastries in the display case. Sometimes he stays so late, talking to Miller, that he feels his phone buzz in his pocket with _where r u?_ texts from Jasper, and sometimes he stays so late than he hangs around, hands stuffed in his pockets, watching Miller turning off lights and locking up the cafe. He does most of the talking, tells Miller about his parents, who are in pharmaceuticals, tells him about the greenhouse in the backyard, hot and humid and Monty's escape from everything. He even tells Miller about the time he and Jasper stole some dubious herbs and got high in his parents' basement.

Miller tells him about his best friend Bellamy and Bellamy's little sister Octavia, who taught him to braid her hair and who hand-made glittery birthday cards for him every year. Miller tells him that he and Bellamy learned to sew so they could make her Halloween costumes, because Bellamy's mom wasn't the best at that kind of thing. Miller even tells him about his dad, who's a cop, and how Miller used to steal but somehow wound up studying criminology and law. Monty can't be sure, but he feels like Miller doesn't talk this much to other people, like maybe no one else knows these things about Miller except for him. Like Miller thinks he, Monty, is worth telling this stuff to.  

Two weeks after he's met Miller, he's lurked at the counter until closing.

He's waiting awkwardly by the front door, waiting for Miller to come out of the back and lock up. "Sorry for hanging around so long," he says, when Miller resurfaces. Holding the door open for him, Miller shrugs.

"Don't worry about it," he says (a little too nonchalantly, Monty thinks), "I'm glad you stayed."

Monty sucks in a breath. "Miller--"

"It's Nathan," Miller interrupts, lips tugging into a grin, eyes sparkling. "My first name's Nathan."

Monty stares for a second and then huffs. "Do you withhold your first name from every stranger you befriend? Is there, like, a probationary period where--"

He's interrupted again by Miller reaching over to wind a scarf-- _Miller's_ scarf, which had just been on  _Miller's_  body--around his neck. "You looked cold," Miller says unabashedly. Monty can only gape. "Where do you live, anyway?"

When Monty tells him that he's ten minutes away on foot, Miller walks him to his building and doesn't ask for the scarf back. And, since Monty's not an absolute idiot, he doesn't offer to return it either.

* * *

 

He runs into Miller on campus a couple days later, and since he's finished classes for the day and Miller seems to be just wandering aimlessly, they spend the afternoon together and Monty is this close to hyperventilating the entire time. He's definitely had crushes before, but none of them have ever been on this level. He can feel his magic is reacting weirdly to his feelings, too, because his Areca palm tree has suddenly and inexplicably shot up to reach ten feet tall, rather than the typical eight feet. He had to spend a whole afternoon trying to coax it back down to normal size. Some of the other plants he's found almost drowning in water, and he's cross with himself that his feelings are so wacky that they're affecting the work of his magic. He's been keeping an extra close eye on the lighting and temperature for his exotic and picky plants, wants to make sure that he doesn't endanger them or run the risk of actually killing them. 

(Monty Green has never killed a plant; plant care is almost hardwired into him.)

Anyway, Monty and Miller--Nathan--wander through the bioscience building, which has a simulated boreal forest that Monty likes to meditate in sometimes. As they walk through it, Monty can feel himself calming down, can feel his magic balancing and evening out inside him. He reaches out a hand and fingers dewy leaves, skates his palms down trunks. He looks over his shoulder to see Miller looking at him with something akin to amusement playing around the corners of his mouth. 

"Are you having a religious experience?" Miller asks, and Monty, flush with magic and life and abrupt confidence, steps toward Miller, into his space, and Miller doesn't back away, only widens his eyes a bit, opens his mouth.

"Nathan," Monty says deliberately, watching Miller's pupils dilate, "shut up."

And Monty Green kisses Nathan Miller in his favourite place on campus, and the whole thing probably couldn't get any better, except Miller groans and slides his arm around Monty's waist, and Monty's forced to reconsider because being pressed against MIller's body is--amazing. To say the least. 

Someone coughs pointedly nearby, and Monty realizes belatedly that there are people doing actual work in here, and his cheeks can hardly flush deeper than they already have, but he doesn't care because Miller catches his hand up and tangles their fingers together. He smiles like he wants to stick around, wants to know Monty better than anyone, wants wants wants.

Monty's magic is hungry and craving and it's the first time that's ever happened and he guesses that's as good a sign as any to start getting his hopes up.

Of course, by the time he's standing in his living room with the front door closed behind him, by the time the magic's chilled out and he feels more drained than usual, he realizes that abruptly putting his mouth on Miller's mouth might have been a mistake. Miserable, he slumps onto the couch and flicks his finger absently at the thin overhanging leaves of a nearby Dracaena Marginata. The tree shivers.

"Sorry," Monty mutters, and puts his face in his hands. Thinks about texting Miller, but what would he say?  _Sorry for kissing you and then holding your hand. Let's be friends_. 

Monty groans and gets up and sits back down again. Shit. __

* * *

 

Turns out he doesn't have to worry, because Miller shows up at his door the next day with a sheepish look on his face.

"Look," he says as Monty lets him inside, only pausing wide-eyed for a split second in reaction to the wild amount of plants in the room, "You seemed kind of on edge yesterday. After, uh. You know."

Monty isn't really sure what kind of tone Miller's going for, isn't sure if he's trying to let Monty down gently or something better. "Uh, kind of. About the, uh--"

"I liked it," Miller cuts in quickly. Monty stops short. 

He manages an "oh" before he notices that Miller's stepped up closer to him.

"You have a lot of plants," Miller says lowly, gaze fastened on Monty's.

"It's the magic," Monty says without thinking. And then his brain catches up and, shit. Miller pulls back slightly.

"Magic?" he asks, brow furrowed. Monty doesn't really know what to say so he stares blankly at Miller, brain working furiously. "You... have magic?"

"You're remarkably calm about this," Monty finally manages to say.

"That's because I already know about magic," Miller tells him. "I should have realized you have it; there's this energy that you have that nobody else does. I can't really explain it."

Monty breathes out. "I have plant magic," he says. "I mean, that's how I channel it. Nature. I can do other stuff, but it's happiest with plants."

Miller laughs. "I can see that." He swallows, and leans back in to Monty. "Would the plants mind if I kissed you?"

"Um," Monty says, staring at Miller's mouth, "they definitely wouldn't mind. They would probably really like it if you did."

So they're kissing again. That's a thing. Monty hopes it keeps being a thing, like, forever. Miller's a really good kisser. He's slow, and sure, and he puts a hand behind Monty's head and another one at his hip and Monty clings to Miller's biceps. He bites at Miller's jaw and elicits a groan, and Miller's dragging Monty's mouth back up to his. Monty's so overwhelmed he feels like his magic is going to burst out of him.

* * *

 

Monty meets Miller's roommate, Bellamy, whose magic is deep and penetrating and wild. Monty and Miller have dinner together and watch tv for a while, and Miller absently runs his fingers through Monty's hair and it's pretty much the best feeling (other than kissing Miller). Concentrating, Monty twists his fingers and extends his palms, tracing the spiny shape of a cactus in the air. It's taken him a lot of practice but he's able to create living plants from his magic, and he leaves the cactus at Miller's place before he leaves because he thinks it could do with some greenery.

He says "goodnight, Nathan," sees how Miller's eyes blaze, wonders if he's ever going to stop feeling crazy about him. He hopes not.

When he's back at home, Jasper's sitting in the living room miraculously sans Maya. 

"You were out late," Jasper says. "Were you at the library?"

Monty feels like a terrible person for the second in which he considers not telling Jasper the truth--he kind of wants to keep Nathan to himself, just for a little bit longer--but he sits down facing Jasper. "I think I have a boyfriend."

Jasper whoops. "I knew it! You've definitely been pining. Your plants have been tellingly droopy lately. Who's the guy?" Monty describes him, and Jasper doesn't think he recognizes him but that's okay because he'll probably meet Jasper at some point, just like Monty's formally met Miller's roommate. Monty thinks that's a thing that couples do: introduce each other to their roommates over dinner. He doesn't know, he's just giddy.

When he's in bed, staring at the ceiling, absolutely unable to even consider falling asleep, his phone buzzes with a text from Miller:  _thanks for the cactus. I named it Bryan._ His phone buzzes again and Miller's sent him a picture of Bryan the cactus, sitting on Miller's bedside table. He doesn't know what to say in reply, so he doesn't write anything back, but grins like a lunatic at his ceiling for the next half hour. 

* * *

 

He's at Grounders a few days later waiting for Nathan to finish his shift (it's daytime, miraculously; Nathan's traded shifts with a coworker) and leaning on the counter when he feels someone else's magic poking around. Curious, he lets it feel around his magic, and recognizes it almost immediately. He knows this magic--it rushes and swirls, a wind eddy, light but strong--because he's felt it on campus before. He doesn't know a lot of other magic users; he sought a few out when he'd first started here, and he's in pretty regular correspondence with some, but he's never had much in common with them other than magic. This person... she's different. Her magic feels deep and calm. It feels nice.

He looks over his shoulder and sees a girl sitting by the window, blonde hair piled on her head and held in place with what look like paintbrushes, sitting across from Bellamy Blake. She looks cautious, searching, and uneasy, which is why he doesn't go up and introduce himself to her. He has a prickly feeling that he doesn't have to meet her yet, that if she knows Bellamy then they'll probably end up meeting each other sooner rather than later. He also doesn't want to intrude on their conversation; Bellamy's gaze is cloudy and it looks like they're talking about something important. 

Nathan comes up behind him, grabbing his hand, and Monty leaves and doesn't look back.

* * *

 

His suspicion is proven right a few days later when Nathan tells him Bellamy's invited them to Clarke's place. They're in Monty's bedroom, lying on the floor because they've just finished marathoning  _Jessica Jones_ and they need to recover. 

"Do you know Clarke Griffin?" Nathan asks, nudging Monty's arm.

"Nope," Monty says. His arm is flung over his eyes and his brain won't stop replaying the  _Jessica Jones_ theme music.

"Well, Bellamy says we're going to a party at her place on Friday," Nathan says, and Monty snorts.

"Bellamy says?"

"He told me to tell you that Clarke is a magic user and she wants to meet you."

Nathan blinks rapidly at the speed with which Monty jumps to a seated position.

"Clarke Griffin?" he tests her name out. It sounds right.

"Yeah," Nathan says slowly, moving so his head is in Monty's lap. "She's an artist or something and she doesn't know any other magic users. Bellamy says she's lonely and he used the word please."

"Well," Monty says dryly, "that makes all the difference."

Clarke's apartment looks just like the kind of place that Monty imagines would belong to a modern witch. There are candles everywhere, shelves full of old-looking books, weird constellation prints framed on the walls, and what might be a cauldron stuffed into the cabinet under the kitchen sink. She's trying to grow some plants, mostly herbs--he smells lemongrass, basil, parsley, rosemary, tarragon (he wonders if she makes potions with them)--and he decides to help out a little because frankly, she's struggling. She's nice, though, and drinks an impressive amount of his moonshine before almost passing out slumped on Bellamy's shoulder.

(He thinks she only drinks so much to prove to him that she's worth his time, but honestly he thinks he wants this friendship just as much as she does.)

He meets Bellamy's sister, Bellamy's sister's boyfriend, Clarke's roommate, and Raven, who he's seen in his calculus and engineering mechanics classes but never talked to before. He ends up on Clarke's bright orange couch, pressed up against Nathan, fingers slotted together. Nathan's forehead is nudging against his and it's--intimate.

"I think I drank too much moonshine," Monty groans. His tolerance is abysmally low, for someone who actually makes and consumes copious quantities of it pretty often. Nathan laughs lowly and squeezes his eyes shut.

"Remind me to never drink that much of it again," he says. "I don't think I ever want to drink again, actually."

Monty pouts. "Just wait until the hangover clears tomorrow. It's a shitty drink but it's effective."

They sit in each other's space, surrounded by people and gently flickering candles, talking until they run out of words. Clarke's roommate, Wells, offers him and Nathan his bedroom. Clarke is already sleeping--Monty saw Bellamy move past them a while ago, carrying her with her head lolling against his neck--and Monty feels like he's never been so tired. There's colour in his cheeks; he's never shared a bed with Nathan (or anyone) before, but the benefit of being drunk and uninhibited is that he mostly doesn't care what it looks like, him and Miller crawling into bed and closing the door behind them.

Nothing really happens anyway, they're both supremely tired, but after a few minutes of comfortable silence, Nathan reaches for Monty and tugs him close. Nudging Monty's head up, he curls into him and rests his forehead on Monty's shoulder. Monty thinks he feels a kiss pressed to the material of his shirt.

"Nate," Monty whispers into the dark.

"Yeah," Nathan says, and he sounds a little wrecked, a little affected. Monty chews on his lip and brings his hand up to cup the back of Nathan's head.

"Nate," Monty whispers again, and then he's just surrounded, alight.

Nathan is everywhere, on top of him, around him, and Monty wants him closer and closer. Nathan mouths his way down Monty's neck, tugs at the collar of his shirt so he can get his lips on Monty's pulse point. Monty's fingers slide down Nathan's broad back, under his shirt, tracing ribs and muscles and ridges. Nathan's hips jerk into his and Monty gasps and digs his fingers harder into Nathan's back.

They make out for what feels like hours to Monty and he doesn't think he might die from the friction (except that he  _does_ ) and when they're less frantic and kissing lazily and Monty's rolled on top of Nathan, he's so tired that he just kind of sinks and falls asleep to the rumbling of Nathan's breathing.

* * *

 

After almost a month of dating Nathan Miller, Monty is pretty sure that he has the best boyfriend ever. Not only does he accept all the plants Monty forces on him (literally every time he's at Nathan's place, Monty brings another plant with him. What can he say; plants regulate temperature and provide oxygen, and they're good to talk to), he's the one who suggests they try baking a pie for Raven's upcoming Halloween party. And, because he apparently wants to make it "as from-scratch as possible," he takes Monty to the closest apple orchard, which ends up being half an hour away. Neither of them have an actual recipe, and they don't know how many apples they need for this thing, and anyway apparently they've arrived too late in the season to get their hands on any good macintosh apples (according to the farmer, anyway). When no one's looking, Monty crouches over fallen and boot-crushed apples, murmuring at them, coaxing the juice back into them and swiping the bruises away. 

They tumble into Monty's apartment later, laden down with a obscene amount of apples, laughing about something stupid, and Jasper and Maya are sequestered in Jasper's room and Monty thinks back to that night over a month ago when he'd felt lonely. How strange. 

"I'm gonna google a recipe," Nathan is saying, pulling his phone out. Monty checks on his plants, moving around the room and inspecting them one by one. When he's satisfied, he lugs the apples to the kitchen and rummages around for a peeler that he's sure his mom sent back with him the last time he'd visited his parents. "Do we trust Martha Stewart?"

"Didn't she go to jail that one time," Monty calls back, wondering if he can possibly manipulate the peeler with magic so that he doesn't have to divest these apples of their skins by hand. Shrugging, he figures it can't hurt to try and starts casting, winding a curl of magic around the grip of the peeler and gesturing with his hand at a random apple, levitating it in front of him. Concentrating hard, he positions the blade of the peeler and twitches the fingers of his other hand, makes the apple start spinning, tries to keep even pressure on the blade. 

"Whoa," Nathan says from the doorway to the kitchen. "Uh, babe, I hate to break your concentration, but. That's sort of _badass_."

Monty grins even though his back is facing Nathan. "I have a feeling that it's gonna take me a while to do it this way. Not to mention it's gonna use up a lot of magic." Abandoning the working, the peeler falls to the table and Monty catches the apple in his hand. 

"Still," Nathan says, palming a sharp knife and cutting into the peel of another apple, "undeniably hot."

Monty snorts. "Using magic to peel an apple? Freak."

They give up before they're done peeling half the apples, reasoning that no pie needs that many, and start slicing them. Monty ends up calling his mom for a recipe, and he copies it down onto Nathan's arm because he can't find any paper nearby. He's pretty sure he's gotten the measurements right, but Monty's mom's baking technique is weirdly instinctual, and she always seems to carelessly toss in the right amount of everything without measuring. So basically the whole thing is a crapshoot. Monty also doesn't have most of the ingredients they'll need--lard, for one thing, flour, for another, and he also doesn't have a pie plate, which he figures might come in handy. Nathan runs out into the October evening, buys everything they need at the overpriced convenience store a block away, and warms his icy fingers up by pressing them flat against Monty's back under his shirt. They make out, make pie crust, make out some more, and Monty's so jittery he can't concentrate on levitating the apple slices over from the table that he drops most of them on the floor (Nathan laughs himself hoarse) and they have to peel and slice the ones they'd given up on earlier. 

True to his history, Nathan, supposedly keeping an eye on the timer, forgets the pie in favour of getting Monty's shirt off until the fire alarm starts shrieking. 

It's an utter disaster and Monty can't stop grinning.

* * *

Raven's Halloween party is fun, partly because Monty's pretty sure Clarke and Bellamy are A Thing now and he'd definitely called it ages ago. Mostly, though, it's because Monty's surrounded by a bunch of fucking weirdos who couldn't be more important to him. He's always been a loner, just him and Jasper, ever since kindergarten, and he never thought he'd need more than that, but now he can't imagine what his life would be like without Nathan's mouth and eyes and arms, without Clarke's steady magic, without Bellamy and Octavia and Raven. He's part of a  _group text_ now, and even though he can never keep up with conversations, it's still something that makes him feel heavy in his heart, in a good way. 

Nathan's in bed beside him, snoring slightly, and Monty takes a minute to be creepy and watch his boyfriend sleep. His forehead is lined, because he likes to look disapproving and intimidating by scrunching his eyebrows and setting his mouth in a line. His skin is dark and rich and Monty especially likes the way it looks in contrast with his. Reaching up, he pokes Nathan's nose. Nathan's nose twitches and his eye cracks open.

"What," he grunts. Closes his eye. Runs his hand up Monty's side, rucking up his shirt.

"Hi," Monty says, because he hadn't really planned anything else to say. Nathan leans over and nips at Monty's chin. Nathan, who is like a furnace in bed, whose calloused fingers make Monty's heart flutter, whose sleep-dazes eyes are unfocused but astute.

"Is something wrong?"

Monty curls closer to Nathan, and Monty wants him closer and closer. "No. Everything's right."

Nathan chuckles, sends a warm shiver dancing down Monty's spine. His hands drift lower, dangerously, and Monty would be happy to stay in bed all day but he has actual class to go to. 

"Nate," he groans, "I have to get up."

"No you don't."

"I really do," Monty tries to wriggle out from under Nathan, "and so do you."

Nathan has a meeting with his thesis advisor later, and he looks resigned to missing it but Monty's pretty sure if they keep going he will literally never want to get up for a billion years. 

Monty is a little late to class but it's so worth it. He studies in the library for a few hours, checks his watch a couple times and looks out the window at the darkening sky. Finally, he shoves his books back into his bag and pushes through the door into Grounders.

The only other person in the cafe is standing behind the counter wearing a wool beanie. He looks up as Monty comes in, and grins, long and slow. "I'm getting this weird sense of deja vu," Nathan says lightly, and Monty laughs.

"Ready to go home?" he asks.

* * *

 

Nathan and Bellamy's apartment is almost as green now as Monty's is, much to Bellamy's dismay. 

("Dude, you're definitely not here often enough anymore to actually have a say in this," Nathan points out when Bellamy's in one of his irascible moods.)

Monty's back in the biosciences building on campus, by himself, wandering around through the forest. He's whispering wordless sounds to the roots, the bark, the spindly boughs of the coniferous trees. They stand up straight for him, and his magic is coursing through him, and he's going to meet Nathan and the others later on to celebrate Christmas before break.

Monty thinks his smile has never been wider.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I'm crazy and I don't want to study for exams, have another fic. I hope I did Minty justice. Title from Macbeth.


End file.
